Reviewing your pension

You should decide whether you need to make extra payments into your chosen pension. You can change the amount of extra payments you make, and how often you make them. Before you decide to do this, check with the company providing your pension to find out if you will have to pay extra administration charges for making any changes.

Although they are not required to do so by law, some employers are willing to contribute towards their employees’ personal pensions by making payments to the pensions themselves. If you haven’t already done so, think about asking your employer if they will make payments. Also, if you change jobs and your new employer does not offer an occupational scheme, you should tell them you have a personal pension and ask if they will pay towards it.

You usually get tax relief on any extra pension payments you make. But there is an upper limit to the amount of extra payments you can make. If your employer makes any extra payments to your personal pension, they will count towards any payments you make. The total amount of the contributions that you and your employer pay must not add up to more than the upper limit. For more information, please see Personal Pension Schemes (including Stakeholder Pension Schemes) – A guide for members of tax-approved schemes (IR3). The Financial Services Authority also has a useful guide, FSA guide to saving for retirement – reviewing your plans . Click here for details about how you can get copies of both of these leaflets.